Citi and Computershare have collaborated to launch an innovative digital platform for proxy voting.
As a result of the collaboration, both organisations are able to deliver meaningful measurable voting-related benefits to institutional investors and public companies.
Proxymity maximises the accuracy and transparency of the current shareholder meeting voting ecosystem.
The platform removes inefficiencies by directly connecting the issuers to the investors.
Additionally, Proxymity has been successfully used by key investors at 17 shareholder meetings in the UK, and eight of which were for The Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 index (FTSE100) companies.
Meanwhile, the platform is on track to support up to 200 meetings in the UK throughout 2018.
Paul Conn, president of global capital markets at Computershare, said: “Our corporate issuer clients have long sought ways to more efficiently identify and communicate with their institutional investors whose investments are often held by nominees and custodians.”
“Through this effective collaboration with Citi, issuers and institutional investors will now in practice both benefit from investors having more time to digest, communicate and convey voting intentions on important matters that are decided at shareholder meetings.”
Carola van Lamoen, head of active ownership at Robeco, added: “Enhancing transparency and efficiency in the proxy voting chain is of utmost importance to ensure high quality and accuracy of our voting activities.”
“Proxymity’s ability to verify the votes cast at shareholder meetings improves the effectiveness of our voting activities and allows real-time engagement between issuers and investors.”
Jonathan Smalley, co-founder of the Proxymity Platform, Citi, commented: “As Proxymity continues to gain momentum, we are pleased to support a growing number of issuers and investors on the platform and meet users’ requirements for a simpler, faster and more transparent way of performing proxy voting.”
